S2013.2 Team 1
Our entrepreneural team is made up of Julie Himmel, Scott Duvall, and Samira Shirazi. We began with two ideas we felt we could capitalize off of: customizable wall decor in the form of famous quotes and artwork, and the other being fashionable jewlry and designs made from a variation of string, rope, and wire with metal hex nuts of different colors, sizes, and quantities. Our team decided to pursue the fashion designs made with hex nuts, that we now call Chromelets. ''' Goal '''Chromletes achieves to provide trendy women from the age of 18-23 with fashionable bracelets and necklaces at an affordable price, along with men of the same age range with customized key chains. Chromelets will have on-campus sales, intends on setting up an Etsy store to process orders online, and will promote the product by means of social media along with potential word-of-mouth marketing at James Madison University and beyond. MVP 1 To start out with learning how to make a preliminary Chromelet, we started with 1/4" nuts on blue suede lace. 3 strands about 6-7" in length. 16 nuts were used for the body. For closure, we were thinking about adding clasps to the ends, such as regular jewelery. MVP 2 After gaining a nice control over the appearance and quality of our basic Chromelets, we decided to buy different color strands of lace: Brown, Black, Green, and Blue. Black and green proved to be useless as the green was plastic gimp and the black was a different type of suede lace. Blue and brown ended up being a perfect match together. The new Chromelet contained 2 strands of 6" blue lace and 1 strand of 10" brown lace. The blue strands were aligned in the middle of the brown and all three were braided into each other. This left 2" on both ends of the Chromelet. The nuts used were 1/8" size and we used 22 for the body. The multicolored strands created a very neat pattern in the background of the nuts and the smaller nuts allowed for tighter braids around them. These two factors created a far superior Chromelet. For closure, we took a 1/4" nut and tied it to the beginning of one end of the excess brown lace so the opposite end can be threaded through it and a knot can be tied around it for an easier closure. MVP 3 We have been working on a new closure mechanism. Going back to the clasp, we have changed the lace to be a gold color with silver colored nuts. This added to the aesthetic of the Chromelet. IMG 0044-1-.jpg We then tried matching nuts and lace colors. IMG 0042-1-.jpg After deliberation, we decided that the clasp was the way to go. Julie worked on our first necklace design and it proved to show potential for more intricate designs that we will work on over our Spring Break "Workcation". Julie also went on to make the first wrap around Chromelet with yarn instead of lace. The yarn ended up not being the best material, but the bracelet model, in its entirety, seemed to attract a lot of potential customers. IMG_0043.JPG|First Necklace prototype IMG_0045.JPG|Blue and Purple/Pink Bracelet